Conversion Rates Optimization was huge a couple of years ago but now it seems that it’s losing its momentum. This is an illusion though, as the field and the science of CRO is stronger than ever. Only the field of CRO is evolving at the speed of light. In this article, we’re going to explore recent trends in conversion rates optimization field and see how they can be applied to your business.
CRO is not only about changing and testing images and headlines. It’s a complex professional domain that may imply a removal of the website elements, reshuffling of the navigation elements, and reinventing the whole sales funnel. Understanding how the field is changing and what innovations can be implemented on your site is an important part of making your website a conversion generating machine.
As mentioned earlier, the role of conversation rates optimization is changing and evolving. Not only CRO professionals are now responsible for more elements of the site, but they also venture out into the personalization and customer profile building fields. Before any given page can be optimized, CRO person needs to understand who the page is targeted at and then make changes based on the target audience’s preferences.
On a larger scale, conversion rates optimization is no longer about conversions only. Sure, getting that transaction right is an important part of CRO, but without a long-term view on the process, many customers would be left out of CRO’s area of influence. What it means is that conversion rates optimization ceases to be about transactions only, and starts to focus more on other points of engagement across the website.
Conversion rate optimization has always been about data. Smart reliance on data helps you take the website from zero transactions to hundreds. But CRO field is currently experiencing an influx of data that can’t be collected and analyzed. As a result, conversion rate optimization can’t reach its full potential.
The problem is not only that the resources aren’t available but that access to certain types of data is restricted. As the borders of CRO as a science broaden, CRO experts expect to get access to offline data as well as data held by other departments, which isn’t always possible due to companies’ policies.
Making use of collected data is another problem. Expectedly, everyone in the CRO field is looking forward to AI – CRO will be one of the first fields to adopt new technology.
Conversion can come from many different sources. Moreover, the customer’s journey from first becoming aware of the company to the final conversion can be very hard to track. As customers are using multiple devices and access websites on the go, conversion rate optimization field is experiencing problems with defining the exact sources of conversion. When you can’t define the source of a conversion, you can’t optimize your website for the channel where the conversion came from.
For some businesses, this problem is more prominent than for others. B2B marketing often involves real people in their conversion process – for example, sales associates. Even though people performance can be fully optimized, in 2018 conversion optimization professionals will focus on eliminating difficulties associated with human errors.
Testing remains the most critical factor of success in conversion rates optimization field. A/B tests are the founding principle of CRO, yet sometimes the difference between A and B might not be obvious. Another issue to mention is ununified testing practices across the organization. Sometimes conversion rate optimization professionals have to rely on erroneous human judgment to determine how A is better than B. Determining more clear testing practices will become a number one priority for CRO specialists in 2018.
As the phenomenon of FOMO and social proof gain traction, CRO field experts start to incorporate psychology findings into their work. FOMO stands for “fear of missing out” and FOMO plays on our constant desire to achieve something better than what we have now. Essentially, FOMO makes us go for things we don’t usually need or things that we don’t actually want.
Social proof, on the other hand, employs a different tactic. The social proof shows visitors that other people find your offer appealing. For example, testimonials and celebrity endorsement are very powerful marketing tactics that are built on the notion of social proof.
You can play on FOMO and social proof by showing visitors that a certain number of customers already purchased your product or by telling visitors that they won’t get the same chance to buy your product at the offered price again.
Video marketing is exploding and conversion rates optimization strategists take notice. Since you have very limited time to capture visitors’ attention, video can become a powerful tool in persuading visitors to stay on the site.
Videos have an incomparable advantage against other conversion rates optimization tactics. Videos are not only informative and can help you deliver information in a simple and clear manner, but they are also entertaining and have an emotional impact on consumers. Consider incorporating explanation video on your site for complex products, and leverage the power of Youtube as a separate conversion channel.
There is a caveat to videos, however. Since videos take more time to load than images and texts, you might be damaging your SEO rankings and turning visitors away from your site by presenting them with a slow loading site. Make sure your hosting is powerful enough to support videos and encourage visitors to wait for the video to load.
Having the knowledge of trends in the conversion rates and SEO optimization can help you bring your website on par with the competitors’ websites and even outperform them. Conversion optimization takes the website from a simple informational page to a money-making machine. Even though selling your product is so much more than simply convincing customers to buy the product with the help of different website elements, conversion optimization is an important step in streamlining the customer journey.
But as every field in the digital world, conversion optimization is changing. The abundance of data, digital tools, and conversion optimization techniques have expanded CRO field beyond the realms of developing different headlines and testing of the performance of the brighter images versus darker images. As you work on optimizing conversions on your site, keep these trends in mind to remain on top of the game and bring your business to success faster.